To diet successfully,
it is important to suppress insulin secretion. The
best way to do this is to eat 5 small meals spaced
evenly throughout the day; breakfast, morning snack,
lunch, afternoon snack and dinner.
The most successful
diets are fast and effective but should not be
psychologically traumatic experiences. There should be
a decrease in portions, fats and sugars, but not
result in a constant feeling of hunger. This will make
the diet more pleasurable and successful, and that
much easier to maintain. Far too many people who force
themselves on a diet wind up suffering, give up, and
regain the lost weight by binges on once prohibited
foods.
It is a normal cycle in
dieting to initially lose weight and then stabilize
for a while. Don’t get discouraged and run the risk
giving up when the weight loss seems to slow down. A
healthy rate of weight loss is between 20-25 pounds
over a three-month period. The difference in eating
habits between these periods of weight loss and
stabilization must be understood so that a diet can be
truly effective. The results of a diet should be as
rapid as the body will adapt to the change in caloric
intake. In extreme cases, the body is able to live
with very few calories per day - as in the case of
famines or periods of extreme starvation.
If the body becomes
accustomed to 800 calories per day, it will begin to
increase insulin production and start stocking fats as
soon as you increase your intake to above 800
calories. How fast people adapt probably increase with
age. Even when dealing with obesity, the diet needs to
be interspersed with periods of stabilization. This
adaptation to reduced caloric intake explains why when
a diet is stopped and the person goes back to a
‘normal’ eating rate, there will be a subsequent
rapid weight gain.
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